Flying around the coastline was an utter pain. The ocean always caused the air currents to become much more fierce. And the weather could be an utter bitch at times, with the rains and the snows being all the more fiercer. It was good for training, of course, as if one could survive flying along a coast then dealing with the plains was a snap. But that didn't mean that Harry enjoyed it.
It also didn't help that he was having to deal with explosions going off all over.
Harry banked, him and Hedwig's joined might spotting the strange Pokemon's next attack quickly. It threw out a small orb that was rather gelatinous in appearance, like it was made of Jell-O. It wobbled and wiggled even as it moved through the air with a speed that is shouldn't possess. Something so un-aerodynamic should have become falling sooner or gone off course but instead of wiggles orb rocketed forward, forcing Harry to go into a dive. After 3 seconds he felt heat on his tail feathers as the orb exploded, releasing a burst of fire and light. He saw out of the corner of his eye blues and greens like a firework and smelled smoke chasing him.
It also meant the damn Pokemon had gained another 10 yards away from him.
'It'd actually be impressive how it flew, if I weren't the one chasing after it,' he thought to himself. At first he'd assumed that it merely had the ability to levitate but as he'd begun to gain on its he'd seen the small explosions on its feet and realizing that it was firing off very tiny blasts in order to propel itself. It would occasionally twist itself about in order to angle itself body in the proper direction and while it looked very acrobatic Harry could only imagine how horrible it must have been for Lillie being spun about like that.
Slamming his wings back hard Harry forced himself forward, going into a tight spin to make it harder for the Pokemon to get a bead on him with those exploding balls. They were whipping about the Aether Foundation's headquarters, rocketing past buildings and diving down to skim the ground. The Pokemon was racing hard and Harry could tell that this wasn't a performance despite all the many tricks it was pulling off: it was scared and it was triyng to get away from him.
'Good luck with that,' he thought as he began to move slightly to the right, just enough to make the Pokemon nervous. Hedwig and him were quickly working over the different paths they could take and one was becoming clear to them both that would help get this fight into something a touch more controllable. He just needed to trick the Pokemon…
Two more blasts rattled his beak but Harry forced himself to fly through the remains of them, the balls having exploded too early and thus only resulted in him flying through the smoke they produced. It burned his airways but he pushed on all the same, slowly edging right…
'THERE!' Harry thought as the Pokemon suddenly became fearful that he was trying to sneak up on him and take him from the right and thus shot its free hand out, firing a blast to shoot itself to the left to make some room. That forced it back towards the main tower… where Harry had spotted Leon lying in wait.
The Pokemon let out a strangled cry when Leon fired off a series of vines that twisted together into a net. While its explosions could easily tear through the foliage it wasn't blasting its attacks that way and as such it hit the net head on, causing it to falter and slow enough that Harry could put on a burst of speed, closing the gap before he felt his and Hedwig's wings solidify into solid metal. Driving forward he banked hard, slashing at the Pokemon's legs with a Steel Wing that caused it to cry out and drop though, much to Harry's annoyance, it kept hold on Lillie. But it found itself driven down to the roof of one of the Aether buildings and Harry, with utter smoothness that came from years of practice, separated from Hedwig and threw up his hand, firing out Dooby's Pokemon ball.
"Barrier to keep it enclosed!" Harry shouted and at once the Psychic Type nodded, thrusting out his hands and forming a shimmering dome around them. "Orion!" he shouted as he sent out a second Pokeball, calling forth his Empoleon. "Aqua Jet!"
Orion nodded and launched himself forward, forcing the strange exploding Pokemon to leap away before it began to summon more exploding orbs, juggling them before hurling them right at Harry's Pokemon. Orion quickly shielded himself before moving to attack again, jusing the Aqua Jet to force his foe constantly on the back foot and never allowing him the distance he needed.
"Hedwig, get ready to try and snatch Lillie up," Harry commanded as he himself rushed forward, surrounding his arms with Aura Tendrils. That caused the strange Pokemon to back away in surprise before it began to try attacking him as well, forcing Harry to begin using his Tendrils to catch the orbs and hurl them away safely.
"Harry!" Tonks' voice cried out over his comm.. "Listen to me… some of the Aether Scientist told me that isn't a Pokemon."
"What?" Harry said in surprise. "What the heck else could it be?"
"An Ultra Beast," Tonks informed him. "It's a Pokemon not of our world… similar but also vastly different in key ways. You are going to have to be very careful in how you fight that thing, as its not going to obey the normal rules we are all used to."
"Do you-" He had to leap away from an explosion before using his Tendrils to grab a chunk of roof and hurl it at the Pokemon, glad to see that Dobby had wisely expanded the barrier to be under the roof as well as above; there would be no way for the Ultra Beast to sneak away by striking the roof and Harry didn't have to worry about any of his strikes causing harm to those still in the building. "Do you have any more info about it?"
"Give me a moment," Tonks said and Harry grimaced as one of the gel orbs exploded above him, reminding him that he was in the middle of a fight.
"Oh, just take your time," he snarked. "Just trying to save the head of Aether and not die from some crazy not-Pokemon. No big deal at all."
"Patience is a virtue!" Tonk sang.
"Not right now its not!" Harry complained.
Orion thankfully was helping keep the damage down to a minimum, firing off multiple Water Gun attacks to dampen the roof and ensure that there wasn't a billion little fires that he had to deal with. The Ultra Beast was bouncing about like a clown on crack, constantly creating more orbs to send his way and forcing Harry to keep on his toes.
'Fire type to be sure,' Harry thought to himself. 'But I think there might be a secondary typing… I wonder…' He watched as the Pokemon actually toss Lillie in the air, wrapping its leg around her so that it was standing only on a single foot while it used both its hands to create more gel orbs which is began to fling about more rapidly. "Orion! I think it's a Ghost Type!"
The Empoleon nodded before using his water jets to catch two balls and fire them right back at the Ultra Beast.
"Careful!" Harry shouted. "We have to try and get Lillie out of there!"
"Harry!" Tonks called out. "Okay, Neville had to tackle one of the Aether scientists, it wasn't that big of a deal because he looks like he searches for underage feet pics online-" Harry heard someone yelp in protest, "-but he got him in a headlock and he's slipping the inform. You are fighting UB: Burst."
"That's its name?"
"Designation. Lillie proposed calling it Blacephalon. Its attacks focus on explosions… its been throwing gel balls, right?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "I think there are explosive ectoplasm."
"You're right. And its entire body is made up of that stuff."
"You mean I am fighting a walking bag of nitroclycerin?!"
"Pretty much!" Tonks said.
"…any good news?"
"It has the same weaknesses a Fire/Ghost type would have," Tonks stated.
"Right," Harry said as he pulled up the data on his glasses for Ludwig, realizing that what harmed him would harm Blacephalon. "Okay, so Ground, Rock, Ghost, Water, Dark. So Orion is the best one to be out here at the moment. Dobby! Keep the barrier up and stay away, this thing can hurt you!" Harry narrowed his eyes as he charged the blaster in his hand while also wrapping more Aura Tendrils around himself. "Leave it to me and Orion." He turned to his Pokemon. "I need you to buy me time to get in close and grab Lillie, okay?" His pokemon nodded before firing off a Bubblebeam.
Or, rather, what APPEARED to be a Bubblebeam.
It was the Black Family signature move, which always took people by surprise because they assumed the Blacks would have something utterly flashy or dramatic. Some bombastic attack that would instantly shock their foes. But those people didn't understand the Blacks at all; didn't understand how they functioned.
Seeing the orbs coming towards him Blacephalon began to fire off more gel orbs in an attempt to take down the bubbles and keep them from striking him. That proved to be a massive mistake as when the first one hit the Ultra Beast found itself struck by a massive glut of water.
Grand Typhoon saw Orion creating hyper compressed balls of water, dumping an unimaginable amout of water into each one and then pressing them so together to form more. Like steel being folded a thousand times to create Kanto Steel Katanas. And when the bubble was popped all that water had to go somewhere… and that place was right at Blacephalon.
The Ultra Beast let out a cry not designed to come out of a throat (and considering it didn't have a mouth as far as Harry could tell that really was saying something…) as it was sent flying back and harry lashed out with his Aura, one tendril wrapping around Lillie and yanking her free of the creature's grasp before the second Tendril struck its head.
Which promptly exploded.
Harry's eyes went wide in shock just as the Grand Typhon bubbles exploded against the Ultra Beast's body, driving it back. But he could only stand there, holding onto Lillie, watching with wide eyes at what he had done. The water blasts just kept coming, striking the Ultra Beast over and over, making it impossible to see it. And Harry, despite having wanted to defeat the Ultra Beast, hadn't meant to-
The explosions stopped and Harry could only stare at the Ultra Beast as it's body swayed back and forth… before it waved its hands about and its head regrew with a POP!
"What the fuck?" he whispered just as Lillie blinked her eyes and came to. "Its okay, I have you," he assured her. "I'll take care of this-"
"No!" Lillie screamed, flinging hersef from his grasp and racing over to Blacephalon, wrapping her arms around the Ultra Beast. "Its okay! It's okay!"
"What… Lillie, be careful! That thing just-"
"It didn't mean to!" she cried out in a panic, still shielding the Ultra Beast with her own body. "It was scared, okay? That sometimes happens… they get scared and they need me and I was meeting with you! So it panicked and was already panicking before that and it took me because it thought I could help. Wanted me to help." She reached up and began to gently stroke the head of the Blacephalon, the Ultra Beast letting out whining sounds as it leaned into her touch. "It's okay… it's okay, I swear…it…he doesn't want to hurt anyone…he didn't mean too…"
Harry could only stare in surprise as the Ultra Beast that had burst into Lillie's lab, that had caused so much destruction and absolutely could go on to cause destruction… curled in on itself and allowed Lillie to stroke its… his… head, murmuring softly.
After only a moment Harry recalled Orion.
"Sorry," he said softly. "I didn't know."
"I know," Lillie told him though she was focused on Blacephalon. Her tone was accusing, thankfully.
Suddenly the world began to swirl around Harry, everything growing dimmer save for Lillie and Blacephalon. With them it was like someone was illuminating them from on high, placing a spotlight on the two while removing everything else in existence to ensure that Harry looked at them and only them.
"Sometimes the villain is not who we think it is."
"Mewtwo," Harry said softly, looking about but finding no one there.
"You were given information, Harry Potter… you used it to the best of your abilities. But what have you learned from all this?"
"The Ultra Beast reacted violently… but I guess it makes sense. If I suddenly found myself in a world completely different from my own that would shake me up really bad."
"And the actions you might take, which would seem harmless to you, could be seen as life threatening. For Blacephalon the explosions it created were powerful… but not so destructive in its home dimension." There was a pause. "And then there is fear. Fear… it is a powerful force. It can make the weak suddenly stand against the hurricane and roar at it to stand down. It can make the strong tremble and quake and forget all the strength they once had. Fear… makes us do things we never imagined we could do."
"…Lillie wasn't the cheerleader, was she?" He looked at Blacephalon. "It was him."
"It was," Mewtwo confirmed. "I sensed his panic… I knew that soon he would react violently in response to the fear he was trying to contain. I wished to see how you would react."
"Did I fail?" Harry asked, thinking of the flight and fight he'd engaged in, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach that he had added to the torment the Ultra Beast was going through by pursuing him.
But Mewtwo's voice cut through his doubt and worry. "Life is not a single moment. Were it many monsters would be judged as saints and good men condemned for a single mistake. You acted to try and save the woman… and when you learned of your error you stood down. Others would have pressed on. Not believed Lillie because of her gender or her soft heart. Not see that the Ultra Beast was an innocent because it was strange and different. You… stood down. Felt regret. And learned to be better."
There was a pause.
"No… you did not fail."
Lillie and Blacephalon disappeared, leaving Harry only in darkness.
"But you have not succeeded yet."
Harry felt himself shift slightly and in the span of blinking found that he was no longer on the roof of the Aether Foundation. Rather he was standing in a massive open field that stretched on for acres and acres. Around him were hills and then mountains, with small rivers leading into lakes. He spun around, feeling the cool wind nip at his breeze loose clothes, and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to figure out what had just happened.
"What is man's greatest fault?" Mewtwo whispered in his mind before Harry felt the Pokemon's presence completely disappear.
"Harry!" Hedwig cried out, flying over with Dobby on her back. The Alakazam is a bit wobbling as he floats off Hedwig's back and Harry quickly returns him to his Pokeball, figuring he needs a rest. "You mind telling me why I went from flying about buildings to having to catch that guy because the building he was on disappeared?"
"I think Mewtwo decided to teleport us again," Harry muttered just as his dex began to ring. Taking it out he saw it was Tonks and quickly put it on speakers. "I assume you guys aren't in the office anymore?"
"Nope," she said in annoyance. "We are at a train station."
"A train station?"
"Yeah, which really tells me we aren't in Alola anymore. All our stuff is here too, thankfully, but we went from that office to… a train station." She let out a huff. "Mewtwo?"
"Mewtwo."
"I know he's the most powerful pokemon out there discounting the ones that, if they exist, are literal gods, but this is getting a bit ridiculous that he feels he can just toss us around without our consent."
"If we want his help we have to play by his rules," Harry reminded her.
"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Tonks muttered.
Neville chimed in. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine… Blacephon wasn't trying to hurt us. It got freaked out and wanted Lillie… I guess Aether doesn't just care for Pokemon but Ultra Beasts."
"Ultra… what now?"
"Ultra Beasts. Pokemon from another dimension. It's… a thing."
Hermione's voice cut in. "Uh, could we talk about that when you are here? Luna is beginning to vibrate because of all the references she wants to make and if we have to deal with it you have to deal with it."
"Right."
"Where are you?" Tonks asked.
"In some kind of field. Not sure of anything else. All I know is there are…" he looked around, spotting at least 10 different species of Pokemon moving about, "…a lot of wild Pokemon here."
"Need us to come get you?" Leon asked.
"No, stay where you are," Harry informed hi started. "You guys are sheltered at least. He looked up at the sky, which was beginning to cloud over. "I think a storm is coming in. I'm going to find some place to wait it out."
"Can't Dobby teleport you?" Neville asked.
"He needs exact location. Besides he's probably worn down from dealing with that barrier I had him throw up to protect everyone when I battled the Ultra Beast. I want to give him a rest… a Pokemon Center would be best but that will have to wait."
"Did Mewtwo tell you anything?" Hermione asked.
"What is man's biggest fault?" Harry said. "That was his question."
"That is an odd riddle," Hermione said, tutting slightly. "Biggest fault… everyone has faults."
"I'm guessing he's asking about mankind," Harry said.
"Well, mankind has made a ton of mistakes. But our biggest fault?"
Harry felt the winds pick up. "Listen, I need to go, okay? I'll call when the storm passes." He hung up quickly and began to hurry along the field, looking for someplace he might be able to shelter from the storm. The problem was that everywhere he looked really didn't look appealing. There were a few trees but with the way the wind was blowing it would be no different from just standing out in the middle of the field with his arms wide screaming, "Come rain on me bitches!". Same for the outcrops near the river. Making his way up a hill he finally spotted a large gate and beyond that the tall buildings of some town but the relief he felt at that sight quickly died when he realized there was simply no way he was going to be able to get there in time. He could see just past the town a curtain of heavy rain heading towards him, meaning that even if he began to run he'd be rushing TO the storm and not away. And behind him was just more field and hills and water. Nothing to-
"Harry!" Hedwig called out and he turned to see the Noctowl peaking at a circle of orange stones that surrounded a hole that was roughly a yard wide. "This leads to a cavern!"
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Hedwig said, sticking her head into the hole before popping up. "Pretty deep too… looks like a tunnel."
Harry worried his lip before nodding. "Alright, we take the risk."
Ten minutes later Harry was walking through the tunnel, Ludwig illuminating their way with Hedwig remaining in the rear to make sure they could still see their way back towards the entrance. The last thing any of them wanted was to get lost in the twists and turns of some tunnel system that ran along the field. Yet the tunnel was straight as an arrow, arcing down in a gentle slope. They were moving because the rain was pouring down through the hole and the slope meant that the water was rushng along the tunnel; Harry didn't want to risk it flooding, of course, but he also didn't want to stand there leaning against a cold stone wall waiting for the rain to soak through his shoes. So they kept going.
The light was bouncing off it weird, causing Harry some mild confusion because it felt oddly… familiar. He couldn't place the coloring he was seeing but he knew he had seen it before from somewhere.
Harry suddenly stilled, all his senses screaming at once.
"Stop," he hissed as softly as he could. "There is something else down here."
"Turn around?" Hedwig asked, shuffling her taloned feet slightly.
Harry though shook his head. "No… let's see what the heck is waiting for us at the bottom."
It took another minute for them to reach the end of the tunnel, the light from the entrance now just a small dot behind them. The water was running down into the massive cavern they had discovered, forming puddles all at the opening. Massive was the wrong word for it because the cavern was so big that massive seemed like a tiny word for such a large place. Harry knew that part of it was the rippling light on the walls distorting things, making it hard to tell where the walls actually were, but the cavern was still big.
And staring into its depths he suddenly put all the pieces together.
They were in Galar.
This was a Dynamax Den.
And before him was a 50 foot Frosmoth.